Postings to newsgroup support exercise of personal jurisdiction

A pair of New Jersey plaintiffs sued a California defendant over “vile” messages that the defendant allegedly posted about the plaintiffs on a newsgroup devoted to cruises and cruise ships. The defendant didn’t answer the complaint, and the trial court entered a default judgment against him in excess of $1 million. That got the defendant’s attention, so he hired local counsel to move to set aside the default judgment, claiming the court lacked personal jurisdiction over him. The trial court denied the motion, and the defendant sought review with the appellate court. On appeal, the court affirmed the denial, holding that the exercise of personal jurisdiction was proper.

In Calder, the defendants “edited an article that they knew would have a potentially devastating impact upon [the plaintiff],” knowing that “the brunt of that injury would be felt by [the plaintiff] in the State in which she live[d] and work[ed].” The New Jersey court found similarities in this case, even though, in reciting the facts, it stated that the defendant had “no contacts of any type with New Jersey.”

The court concluded that the author of the message board postings did, indeed, target them to New Jersey, not only knowing that plaintiffs resided there, but also knowing the municipality in which they resided. He made specific disparaging references to that municipality in many of his postings, some of which were made in response to plaintiffs’ replies to offending comments. This intentional and directed conduct, and its connection to New Jersey, according to the court, was such that the defendant should reasonably have anticipated being haled into court there.

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Evan Brown is an attorney in Chicago helping businesses and individuals identify and manage issues dealing with technology development, copyright, trademarks, domain names, software licensing, service agreements and other matters involving the internet and new media.

Evan is a partner in the law firm of Much Shelist, P.C. He is an adjunct professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law, and is a Domain Name Panelist with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).